Bernard Schoenburg: Kelly’s social media’ schtick is tiresome

Saturday

I don’t like doing what I am about to do: give WILLIAM KELLY publicity.

I don’t like doing what I am about to do: give WILLIAM KELLY publicity.

But one of a columnist’s jobs is to put events in perspective.

I’ll start with some of Kelly’s past exploits. He’s produced TV shows and other video and audio presentations over the years under names like “Sportsaholic” and “Upscale TV.” Some of the programming has shown Kelly dancing with and hugging women, professing love for at least one, and showing the “fun” of late-night drinking.

Doesn’t sound like your average Republican candidate or conservative activist, but Kelly, 45, of Chicago, has tried to be both. He got less than 22 percent of the vote in a three-way contest for the 2010 GOP nomination for comptroller, when winner JUDY BAAR TOPINKA got 59 percent. During that campaign, he called me often, one time in particular telling me he was calling from a Springfield bar — which I almost mentioned in a column. I didn’t find out until our next conversation that he had really been in Chicago. He says now that he was just teasing.

Hey, ROD BLAGOJEVICH used to tell jokes that sounded true, too.

Also during that primary campaign, Kelly said in a news release he was coming to the Statehouse rotunda to try to remove an anti-religion display. He got the name of the sponsoring group wrong in his own news release, and after starting to turn around a display, he was stopped by Capitol Police.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. U.S. Sen. DICK DURBIN, D-Ill., spoke at a City Club of Chicago luncheon on Aug. 8. A news conference followed, at which Kelly, cameraman in tow, asked if Durbin shared some of the blame for the downgrade of federal debt.

JIM ANDERSON, news director of the Illinois Radio Network — which serves 55 stations statewide. including WTAX in Springfield — interrupted, saying Kelly wasn’t a reporter and telling him to be quiet.

Kelly continued on, saying he writes for the Communities section of the Washington Times newspaper.

Kelly, as expected, later posted video of the confrontation on the Internet, and conservative outlets including Fox News picked it up. KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE of the Fox show “The 5” presented the footage as a “viral” video that “the mainstream media hasn’t reported.”

It turns out that Kelly does post directly to the Communities section of washingtontimes.com, and the connection to the newspaper is not direct. Communities is not edited by Washington Times staff. JACQUIE KUBIN — who manages the site, contracts with the Times, but she also is not a Times employee. She, not the Times, pays her 85 contributors.

Kubin told me the site fits the model of “social journalism attached to mainstream media.”
Kelly posted to Communities about what he called his encounter with “Chicago liberal media” and thanked outlets that ran the video. In the post, he wrongly called Anderson a “traffic reporter.”
He headlined the whole episode as an example of “why social media works.”

Kelly laughed when I asked how much he is paid — real money or lunch money. “Someday when you come and work for the Kelly Truth Squad (that’s at kellytruthsquad.com), we’ll talk money,” he said.

Anderson’s view? “People are trying to do their jobs. They get 15 minutes with Dick Durbin to ask him questions, and we don’t need to be part of the William Kelly show.”

Durbin spokeswoman CHRISTINA ANGAROLA said she asked Kelly for press credentials before the after-forum news conference, and all he could show was a business card identifying him as a 2010 comptroller candidate.

“Kelly was disruptive from the beginning,” she said.

At the encounter, after Kelly got his full question out, Durbin said, “Will you please leave?” And after Kelly had been escorted from the news conference, he asked Durbin later, as he was leaving, “In all seriousness, any interest in answering the question?”

“I don’t take you seriously,” Durbin said.

Kelly then looked into the camera, saying, “There’s the answer, I guess. It’s everybody else’s fault but Senator Downgrade and President Downgrade.”

PAUL GREEN, professor of political science at Roosevelt University in Chicago, chairman of the City Club of Chicago and moderator of its series of public affairs forums, said the incident means the club will now have someone from its board at after-event news conferences, if speakers choose to have them, and will require that credentials be shown. That’s not to say anyone in particular would be barred.

But, Green said, Kelly “should be embarrassed” about the way he acted at the news conference.
And so, I might add, should any media outlet, social or otherwise, that ran Kelly’s video without a little background about the self-promoting failed candidate.

Kelly insists that had Durbin just answered his question, “that would have been the end of it.”
Then again, he was calling me from this certain Springfield bar. …

Condolences
Condolences to family and friends of former state Rep. JIM HOLLOWAY, a Democrat from Sparta, who died Aug. 20 at Chester Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.

Holloway was first elected to the House in 1958, and served there until January 1975. He was also a member of the Democratic State Central Committee, and was executive assistant to then-Attorney General NEIL HARTIGAN in the 1980s.

Lt. Gov. SHEILA SIMON, daughter of late U.S. Sen. PAUL SIMON, D-Ill., of Makanda, recalled Holloway as “a buddy of Mom and Dad’s.”

“They shared a lot and supported each other through a lot of political battles,” the lieutenant governor said.

She recalled Holloway as trustworthy and “just a real sweet guy.”

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.

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